Selected Poems by John Tutchin

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Title: Selected Poems
(1685-1700)

Author: John Tutchin

Editor: Spiro Peterson

Release Date: December 25, 2011 [EBook #38407]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

JOHN TUTCHIN

SELECTED POEMS

(1685-1700)

INTRODUCTION

BY

SPIRO PETERSON

PUBLICATION NUMBER 110

WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

University of California, Los Angeles

1964

GENERAL EDITORS

Earl R. Miner, University of California, Los Angeles

Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles

Lawrence Clark Powell, Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library

ADVISORY EDITORS

John Butt, University of Edinburgh

James L. Clifford, Columbia University

Ralph Cohen, University of California, Los Angeles

Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles

Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
Louis A. Landa, Princeton University

Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota

Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles

James Sutherland, University College, London

H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Edna C. Davis, Clark Memorial Library

INTRODUCTION

When John Tutchin died on September 23, 1707, he had already created the image of himself which
Alexander Pope has transmitted to posterity. There, in Book II of The Dunciad (1728), the Whig
journalist appears as one of two figures in a "shaggy Tap'stry":

Earless on high, stood un-abash'd Defoe,
And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge, below.

Pope, in his variorum notes on the passage, identified Tutchin as the "author of some vile verses, and of a
weekly paper call'd the Observator," and revived the fiction of his sentence "to be whipp'd thro' several
towns in the west of England, upon which he petition'd King James II. to be hanged." The "invective"
against James II's memory, which Pope mentions, has now been identified in the Twickenham Edition as
The British Muse: or Tyranny Expos'd (1701).[1] By 1728, this was all the reputation that remained for
Mr. John Tutchin, Gentleman—irascible journalist, pamphleteer, and writer of verses.

The truth of the matter is that Pope was no more accurate about Tutchin's being whipped than about
Defoe's losing his ears. From the sparse reliable information concerning Tutchin's early years, one
consistent pattern emerges: he tended to depict himself as a hero and a martyr. Born in 1661 "a Freeman"
of London, he was brought up in a family of scholarly nonconformist ministers probably on the Isle of
Wight[2]. Even though an enemy claimed that he had been expelled from a school at Stepney for stealing
(DNB), he received some education and travelled on the continent. In defending his skill with languages
against Defoe, he once told how at his school, boys translated and capped verses, and how he travelled
"from Leivarden in Friezland, thro' Holland and the Spanish Flanders."[3] Throughout his life, he
proudly designated himself a gentleman: during his trial for libel in late June of 1704, he even escaped
punishment by setting forth that he was a gentleman, and not a laborer as the indictment read.

In later life, he romanticized himself when young as the hero who fought in the Duke of Monmouth's
rebellion, received the brutal "whipping sentence" from Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys during "the bloody
assezes" of 1685, petitioned James II for "the Favour of being hang'd" to avoid the sentence, and finally
freed himself by paying so burdensome a bribe that he was reduced to poverty. All these claims were first
made in "The Case, Trial, and Sentence of Mr. John Tutchin, and Several Others, in Dorchester, in the
County of Dorset," which Tutchin added to the fifth edition of The Western Martyrology; or, the Bloody
Assizes, published in 1705. As J. G. Muddiman demonstrated in 1929, most of these claims are outright
fabrications. Tutchin was never indicted for high treason, he could never have been challenged by Jeffreys

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to cap verses, and he invented the petition to be hanged.[4] In The Observator (July 25-29, 1702), he
honestly admitted that he was never tried in Devonshire, but claimed he did buy his liberty of James II; and
in a later issue (Aug. 4-7, 1703) he challenged an enemy: "if he Pleases to give the World an Account,
When, Where, and for What I was Whip'd thro' a Market-Town, he will inform Mankind of more than I
or any Body else knows...." John Dunton believed in the whipping sentence; and Defoe, the story of the
petition to be hanged. Throughout Tutchin's stormy career, his enemies made political capital of the
flogging that never took place. He was probably twenty-four years old when, using the alias "Thomas
Pitts," he was tried at Dorchester for "Spreading false news and fined five marks and sentenced to be
whipped"—but he came down with smallpox and so was not whipped.[5] Lord Macaulay, who is incorrect
on the facts taken from The Western Martyrology, certainly exaggerated in stating that Tutchin's temper
was "exasperated to madness by what he had undergone."[6] That the Monmouth adventure and its
aftermath mark a turning point in the young man's life, however, cannot doubted.

Tutchin may have fought with William III's army in Ireland as an officer.[7] After the Glorious Revolution
and the establishment of William and Mary on the throne, Tutchin devoted himself to a succession of liberal
causes. On the one hand, he persisted in identifying himself with the former commonwealth, the Monmouth
cause, the Revolution, the reform movement especially in the theater, and Whig liberty. He became noted
for tactless exposés of high-level misconduct in his pamphlets and in The Observator (Apr. 1, 1702-Sept.
23, 1707). His detractors frequently paired him with Defoe as a monster or a villain. Again and again, he
made himself obnoxious to important personages such as the Earl of Albemarle or the Duke of
Marlborough.[8] On the other hand, his hatred for tyranny propelled him frequently into such extremes as
his disgraceful complicity in William Fuller's impostures. In the years 1700-1704, he was generally reputed
to be "Secretary to the abominal Society of King-Killers"—the secret Calves-Head Club made up of
dissenters who met on January 30th, the anniversary of the death of Charles I, to sing prophane
anthems.[9]

Dunton generously summed up the widely varied causes of "the loyal and ingenious Tutchin (alias Master
Observator); the bold Asserter of English Liberties; the scourge of the High-flyers; the Seaman's
Advocate; the Detector of the Victualling-office; the scorn and terror of Fools and Knaves; the Nation's
Argus, and the Queen's faithful Subject."[10] Even his death in Queen's Bench Prison, on September 23,
1707, was romanticized into another instance of martyrdom. "... he liv'd and dy'd," announced the
Country-man of The Observator, "for the Service of his Country." Tutchin's followers dramatized his
death as the result of a politically-inspired thrashing which "six ruffians" administered to him, in revenge for
slanderous remarks made in The Observator against Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Dilkes.[11] The
"Pulchrum Est Pro Patria Mori" portrait, reprinted here as the frontispiece, was circulated to attest to
Tutchin's political martyrdom. However, as the autopsy-report demonstrates and as Muddiman rightly
concludes, "Tutchin really died from a specific disease and not from the thrashing undergone seven months
before his death."[12]

The young man of twenty four who went off to join Monmouth's forces had already published, in 1685,
Poems on Several Occasions. With a Pastoral. To Which is Added, A Discourse of Life. In the
preface, writing like a fashionable man-about-town, Tutchin describes the lyrics, translations, and satires of
this volume as "trifles" which he had let circulate and had now secured "by promising to Print them." The
book shows the variety in poetic kinds that one would expect in a young writer who had been drinking
deeply of Lord Rochester, Waller, Cowley, the Earl of Roscommon, Oldham, and Dryden. Juvenalian
satires reminiscent of Oldham are neatly balanced by memorial verses to Oldham and Rochester, late
metaphysical lyrics ("And why in red dost thou appear"), classical dialogues ("Cleopatra to Anthony"),
translations of Horace, and the well-turned "autobiographical" couplets of "A Letter to A Friend." In its
variety and themes, Poems on Several Occasions resembles Oldham's Works, which was published
twice in 1684. Tutchin's "The Tory Catch," like Oldham's "A Dithyrambick. A Drunkard's Speech in a
Mask," has a speaker who ironically brags of the social misconduct which the author satirizes. "A Letter to
a Friend" is a skillfully exaggerated account of the attractions and dangers in rhyming. Although perhaps
autobiographical in part, the poem also imitates the long-standing tradition derived from Horace's first
Epistle of Book I, and revived most recently in Oldham's "A Letter from the Country to a Friend in
Town."[13] Both "The Tory Catch" and "A Letter to a Friend" are reprinted here from Poems on Several
Occasions.

Tutchin's first book shows two impulses: the awkwardly lyrical and the directly satiric. He feels compelled,
in the Preface, to defend his choice of less serious subjects. His light poems do not, "in the least, detract
from Virtue; since I have Read the Poems of Beza, Heinsius, our own Donne, &c." He promises to turn
to "some Graver Subject." There are other equally significant comments in a Preface that reveals a great
deal about changing literary taste. In "To the Memory of Mr. John Oldham," Tutchin curiously avoids the
main subject of Dryden's finer elegy, namely, Oldham's achievement in rough satire. His praise is that
"Crashaw and Cowley both did live in thee." However, in his "Satyr Against Vice" and "Satyr Against
Whoring," Tutchin has already learned the art of declaiming, from the poet who has been called "the

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English Juvenal," John Oldham.

In the years between 1685 and 1707, Tutchin's separate poems were mainly occasional and satirical.
Panegyric for William III dominates such an early piece as An Heroic Poem upon the Late Expedition
of His Majesty (1689), and hatred for the Stuarts possesses a later poem like The British Muse: or
Tyranny Expos'd (1701). In Civitas Militaris (1690) Tutchin engages in city politics. The elegy on the
death of Queen Mary irritated Defoe enough to have "T——n" placed among the "Pindarick Legions" in
The Pacificator (1700). Two poems, however,—The Earth-quake of Jamaica (1692) and Whitehall
in Flames (1698)—differ from the others in that they are Cowleyan "Pindaricks" moralizing on disasters.
The Earth-quake of Jamaica is reprinted here to illustrate Tutchin's descriptive talent. He starts with an
actual event, the Jamaican disaster of June 7, 1692; and then, as the epigraph on the title page suggests, he
presents a variation on Horace's rejection of "senseless Epicureanism," in Ode 34 of Book I. The Earth-
quake of Jamaica may have been worked over longer than was customary. It was published shortly
before December 10, the manuscript date on Narcissus Luttrell's copy now in the Houghton Library.
Some six months earlier, in the late morning of June 7, the earthquake had erupted in Port Royal, the
"boom" port on the south side of the island. In three schocks lasting less than three minutes, the famed
capital of the buccaneers had fallen. News of the disaster did not reach London until August 9. The
earthquake then became one of the most widely discussed events. The London Gazette ran stories on it,
scientists like Sir Hans Sloane published eye-witness accounts in the Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society, the moralists declared God's wrath had come upon the wickedest place in Christendom,
and "the actors of the drolls" in Southwark Fair even mockingly re-enacted the event until the Lord Mayor
put a stop to the performances.[14]

If contemporary accounts of the Port Royal earthquake are compared with The Earth-quake of
Jamaica, the reader becomes impressed by Tutchin's way of adapting the well-known details to a moral
comment on life. His scenes are indeed graphic, but they do not have the immediacy of such eye-witness
accounts as the following, preserved by Luttrell:

I cannot sufficiently represent the terrible circumstances that attended it;
the earth swelled with a dismal humming noise, the houses fell, the earth
opened in many places, the graves gave up some of their dead, the tomb
stones ratled together; at last the earth sunk below the water, and the sea
overwhelmed great numbers of people, whose shreiks and groanes made
a lamentable eccho: the earth opened both behind and before me within 2
foot of my feet, and that place on which I stood trembled exceedingly; the
water immediately boyled up upon the opening of the earth, but it pleased
God to preserve me....[15]

Tutchin's aim is to compare vulnerable nature with vulnerable man: "Can humane Race / Stand on their /
Legs when Nature Reels?" He sees in the disaster a challenge for English sinners to repent: the "Hurricane
of Fate" wails on "murder'd Cornish." He had not yet forgotten the Monmouth adventure. For he alludes
here to the act of Parliament passed in 1689 reversing the attainder of Henry Cornish, the alderman who
had been brutally executed in 1685 for high treason through participating in the Rye House Plot and
attaching himself to the Duke of Monmouth. For Tutchin, politics were always relevant.

Tutchin's true forte is not the descriptive poem, but satire. Poems published in the years 1696 to 1705—
from A Pindarick Ode to The Tackers—exploit the satirical impulse that had been latent in Poems on
Several Occasions. Increasingly he turns to general denunciation and thinly disguised lampoon. Of the two
main Augustan traditions in satire—the "fine raillery" that Dryden perfected and the rough satire that
reached back to Donne, Cleveland, and Oldham—Tutchin belongs to the latter. Defoe found him to be "so
woundy touchy, and so willing to quarrel," and noted that "Want of Temper was his capital Error."[16] The
specific circumstance that produced A Pindarick Ode, in the Praise of Folly and Knavery (1696),
reprinted here, is generally said to be his dismissal from the victualling office because he failed to establish
his case that the commissioners mismanaged public funds. Such corruption in the administration would
soon transform a deep admiration for William III into the disenchantment of The Foreigners (1700). That
Tutchin was uneasy in his effort to write satire in the mode of Dryden is suggested by his abandonment of
irony after the first part of A Pindarick Ode. In his introductory verses, Benjamin Bridgwater accurately
observes that Erasmus' Ironia no longer suffices:

This hard'ned Age do's rougher Means require,
We must be Cupp'd and Cauteriz'd with Fire.

Echoing Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, Tutchin invites Dullness and "Immortal Nonsence" to inspire his ironic
praise of the folly and knavery that now ride roughshod over such traditional values as learning, love, wit,
and patriotism. A few of the lines have the moving quality of Augustan satire at its best:

Did e'er the old or new Philosophy,

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Make a Man splendid live, or wealthy die?

The irony of A Pindarick Ode does not adequately mask the denunciation. In Stanza X, it is even
replaced by the antiquated Hero's diatribe against "our modern Knavish Arts"—never to return to the rest
of the poem. Doubtless, the indictment of the "nefarious Brood at Home" that grows rich in wartime was
the heart of the satire. Defoe hinted at this motive in the satirical vignette of Tutchin as Shamwhig, which
appeared in the first edition of The True-Born Englishman (1700):

As Proud as Poor, his Masters he'll defy;
And writes a Piteous *Satyr upon Honesty.
Some think the Poem had been pretty good,
If he the Subject had but understood.
He got Five hundred Pence by this, and more,
As sure as he had ne're a Groat before.[17]

Tutchin's satire would be henceforth the rough variety. In The Foreigners he would also resort to fierce
lampoons of William III's court favorites.

In the rash of satires that followed The Foreigners and The True-Born Englishman, the anonymous
author of The Fable of the Cuckoo (1701) pointed to the common tradition shared by both poems. For
he attacked Defoe's "hatchet muse" as having been inspired by such "Modern Sharpers of the Town" as
Tutchin and "Old[ha]m the Bell-weather of Tory Faction," who first horned Defoe's satire, "And ever since
perverted all good Nature." Advertised in The Flying Post for July 31-Aug. 1, 1700, The Foreigners
was published shortly thereafter by the ardent Whig Anne Baldwin. The "vile abhor'd Pamphlet, in very ill
Verse, written by one Mr. Tutchin, and call'd The Foreigners"—Defoe recalled years later in An Appeal
to Honour and Justice (1715)—filled him "with a kind of Rage." Tutchin's irascible temper had again
taken hold. Scurrilously, he assailed foreigners in high office, especially William III's Dutch favorites, for
their monopolizing preferments and usurping command, under such transparent aliases as "Bentir" for
William Bentinck, first Earl of Portland, and "Keppech" for Arnold Joost van Keppel, first Earl of
Albemarle. The manner was Dryden's in Absalom and Achitophel; the venom was Tutchin's own. Official
reaction to The Foreigners came quickly. The untrustworthy William Fuller spread the gossip that Tutchin
fled from his Majesty's messengers, and found refuge "in a blind Ale-house, at the Windmill, by Mr.
Bowyers, at Camberwel." On August 10th, he was taken "into custody of a messenger"; and at the grand
inquest for the city of London, held on August 28th, there was presented "a Poem called The
Foreigners."[18] A mystery envelops the rest of the legal proceedings. There may even be some truth in
the allegation that the parry would long since have "ruffled" Tutchin, except that he pleased them with his
"railing at King William's Friends sometimes."[19] The Foreigners also aroused such ephemeral rejoinders
as The Reverse: or, the Tables Turn'd and The Nations: An Answer to the Foreigners. both published
in 1700. Finally, in January of 1701, there was published a satire of more lasting worth, Defoe's The True-
Born Englishman. Side by side, in Poems on Affairs of State (1703), were reprinted The Foreigners
and The True-Born Englishman among verses "Written by the Greatest Wits of this Age."[20]
Altogether, the two satirists had three poems apiece in the volume. One of Tutchin's poems, "The Tribe of
Levi" (1691), was anonymously reprinted; the other two, The Foreigners and The British Muse, were
identified as "by Mr. T——n." These were the achievements of Tutchin's "hatchet muse."

The poems are reprinted from copies in libraries of the U.S. and Great Britain. I am obligated to The
Houghton Library for Poems on Several Occasions and The Earth-quake of Jamaica, to Yale
University Library for The Foreigners, and to the British Museum for A Pindarick Ode, in the Praise of
Folly and Knavery. For permission to reproduce the "Pulchrum Est Pro Patria Mori" portrait of John
Tutchin as the frontispiece, I wish to express my thanks to the Trustees of the British Museum.

Spiro Peterson

Miami University

Oxford, Ohio

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

The Dunciad, ed. James Sutherland (The Twickenham Edition, Methuen & Co., Ltd.,
1943), pp. 115-18.

Tutchin's birth-year is variously given. The Van der Gucht engraving and the authentic
Elegy of Tutchin's death state that he died "Aged 44"; but the mock Elegy, falsely
claiming to be "Written by the Author of the Review," gives his age to be 47. In The
Observator (Oct. 20-23, 1703), Tutchin implied that he was "Born some years after the
Restoration of King Charles the 2d." His certificate of marriage to Elizabeth Hicks on Sept.
30, 1686 places his age then at twenty-five, and supports the birth-year 1661, as given in
the DNB. See also The Observator, May 17-20, 1704; July 8-12, 1704; and July 24-28,
1703. One of Tutchin's enemies charged that he was born in the north of England (An

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[1]

[2]

Account of the Birth, Education, Life and Conversation of ... the Observator, 1705); and
another, that his father was "a Scot, canting Presbyterian Sot" (The Picture of the
Observator, 1704).

The Observator, June 2-6, 1705. Tutchin stated, in The Case, Trial, and Sentence, that
Judge Jeffreys had "a true Account" of his activities in Holland. See J. G. Muddiman, ed.,
The Bloody Assizes (Toronto, [1929]), p. 137.

Muddiman, pp. 136-37. The Case, Trial, and Sentence is reprinted as a true record in T.
B. Howell's A Complete Collection of State Trials (London, 1812), XIV, 1195-200, but as
a highly questionable document in Muddiman, pp. 137-46.

Muddiman, p. 219.

The History of England, ed. C. H. Firth (London, 1914), II, 639. Insofar as the DNB
article on Tutchin relies on Macaulay, it is erroneous.

Shortly after Tutchin's death, the Country-man of The Observator lauded his beloved
master as "an Officer in the Army," and addressed him "Captain Tutchin," as did the mock
Elegy and the friendly Dunton.

Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs (Oxford, 1857), V, 257;
Manuscripts of the Marquis of Bath (H.M.C., London, 1904), I, 105-06.

The authorship of the Calves-Head anthems is assigned to Tutchin in The Reverse: or, the
Tables Turn'd (1700), p. 7, and to both Tutchin and Benjamin Bridgwater in The
Examination, Tryal, and Condemnation of Rebellion Observator (1703), p. 17. See also
Howard William Troyer, Ned Ward of Grubstreet (Harvard University Press, 1946), pp.
110, 117.

The Life and Errors of John Dunton (London, 1818), I, 356.

See The Observator, Jan. 4-8, 1707, and "Postscript"; Jan. 12-15, 1707; and Sept. 20-24,
1707.

Pp. 12-13. See also The Observator, Sept. 27-Oct. 1, 1707, and William Bragg Ewald,
Rogues, Royalty, and Reporters (Boston, [1954]), p. 14.

For the two Oldham pieces, see Poems of John Oldham, introd. Bonamy Dobrée
(Southern Illinois University Press, [c. 1960]) pp. 50-54, 72-79.

The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1955), V, 115; Luttrell, II,
565; W. Adolphe Roberts, Jamaica: the Portrait of an Island (New York, [c. 1955]), pp.
44-45; and Mary Manning Carley, Jamaica: the Old and the New (London, [c. 1963]), pp.
34-36, 157-58.

Luttrell's entry for Aug. 13, 1692 (II, 539).

Review, IV (Sept. 7, 1706) and IV (Nov. 20, 1707).

Defoe's gloss on "Piteous Satyr" is "Satyr in Praise of Folly and Knavery." (The True-Born
Englishman, 1700, p. 37.) Since he regards this as the title of the "Satyr upon Honesty,"
Defoe may be confusing A Pindarick Ode with Tutchin's next satire, A Search after
Honesty (1697).

Mr. William Fuller's Letter to Mr. John Tutchin (1703), p. 7; Luttrell, V, 676, 683; The
Proceedings of the King's Commission of the Peace, and Oyer and Terminer and Goal
Delivery of Newgate ... the 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st Days of August 1700.

"A Dialogue between a Dissenter and the Observator," in A Collection of the Writings of
the Author of the True-Born Englishman (1703), p. 227.

II, 1-6, 7-46.

John Tutchin

Mr. John Tutchin

Dy'd Septber 23d 1707. Aged 44.

POEMS

ON

Several Occasions.

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

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[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

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[18]

[19]

[20]

21

WITH A

PASTORAL

To which is Added, A

DISCOURSE

OF

LIFE

By JOHN TUTCHIN.

LONDON,

Printed by J. L. for Jonathan Greenwood, at the

Black Raven in the Poultry, near the

Old Jury. MDCLXXXV.

THE

Tory Catch.

I.

A Friend of mine, and I did follow
A Cart and Six, with Brandy fraught;
We sate us down, and up did swallow
Each a Gallon at a draught:
The sober Sot can't drink with us,
May kiss coy Wine with Tantalus.

II.

With Musick fit for Serenading,
We did ramble to and fro;
Then to Drink and Masquerading,
'Till we cannot stand nor go;
One Leg by Bacchus was quite lamed,
'Tother Venus had defamed.

III.

At the Tavern we did whisk it,
And full Pipes did empty drain:
We eat Pint-Pots instead of Bisket,
And piss'd 'em melted out again:
We beat the Vintner, kiss'd his Wife,
And kill'd three Drawers in the strife.

IV.

22

23

In the Street we found some Bullies,
And to make our valour known,
We call'd 'em Fops, and silly Cullies,
And knock'd the foremost of 'em down:
And with praise to end the Fray,
We, like good Souldiers, ran away.

V.

To the Play-House we descended,
For to get a grain of Wit,
Our own with Wine was so defended.
We sate spuing in the Pit,
'Mongst Drunken Lords and Whoring Ladies,
To see such sights whose only Trade is.

A

LETTER

TO A

FRIEND.

Thanks for your Praises! were they due, I wou'd
Pamper my self with Joy, and think 'em Good.
Loaden with Laurels for mine unknown Art,
You paint me Great, although beneath Desert.
But if Macenas had a lasting Fame,
Because the best of Poets us'd his Name;
Then Merit justly may to me belong,
Because 'tis sung by your all-skilful Tongue.
Oft have I blam'd my Stars, that I should be
Plagu'd with this soft deluding Poetry:
This Charming Mistress that has kept my Heart,
Quite from a Child, by her bewitching Art.
From her glad Fountain I can always find
A pleasing Philtre to make Phillis kind:
For tell me that coy Maid could ever be
Cruel, when urg'd by Charming Poesie?
Verse is the Poet's Beauty, Wealth and Wit;
And what soft Virgin won't be won by it?
But, wearied with Delight, I always try
Against this Spell to find a Remedy.
By good Divinity I think to find
A Soveraign Remedy for Soul and Mind:
But then, with Holy Flame, I strait do burn,
And all to Hymns, and Sacred Anthems turn.
Nay, when the Night does waking Thoughts redress,
And Guardian Angels with our Souls converse,
To busie Mortals is the sleeping Time;
I dream and slumber all the Night in Rhyme.
Then puzling Logick next I take in hand;
But this, Alas! can't Poesie withstand.
Barbara, Celarent, I with Ease express,
And yoke rough Ergo's into well-made Verse:
My Faithless Lover's Syllogism tries;
I by stout Logick find their Fallacies.
Then Scheibler, Suarez, Bellarmine I get,
And sound the depth of Metaphysick wit:
Streight, in a fret, I damn 'em all at once,

64

65

66

And vow they are as dull as Zabarel or Dunce.

Credit me, Sir, no greater plague can be,

Than to be poison'd with mad Poetrie:
Like Pocky Letchers, who have got a Clap,
And paid the Doctor for the dear mishap;
But newly eased of their nausceous pain,
Return unto their wanton Sin again.
So Poets be they plague'd with naughty Verse,
They never value good nor bad success:
Or be they trebly damn'd, they will prefer
Their next vile scribling to the Theater.
Well might the Audience, with their hisses, damn
The Bawdy Sot that late wrote Limberham:
But yet you see, the Stage he will command,
And hold the Laurel in's polluted Hand.
In slothful ease, a while I took delight,
And thought all Poets mad that us'd to write.
So long I kept from Verse, I thought I'd lost
My Versing Vein, and of my Fortune boast:
But having tryal made, I quickly found
My store renew'd, in numbers strong and sound
With ease my happy fancies come and go,
As Rivulets do from Parnassus flow.
Then finding that in vain I long had try'd
The Poet from the Tutchin to divide;
I charming Poesie make my delight,
And propagate the humor still to Write.

Our new Divines do alter not one jot,

From what their Tribe in older times have wrot;
Except, like Parker, to have something new,
They broach new Doctrines, either false or true:
A Publick Conscience, which for nought does pass,
But proves the Writer is a publick Ass;
Who the new Philosophick world have told,
Have for a new but varnish'd o're the old.
But all Poetick Phancy can't draw dry,
Th' unfathom'd Wells of deepest Poesie.
The Bifront Hill is always stout and strong;
The Muses still are handsome, always young.
The clearest streams of Chrystal Helicon
Do o're the Pebles in sweet Rhymings run.
Why then should you, Dear Sir, (that have pretence
To the extreamest bounds of Wit and Sense)
Lay by your Quills and hold your Tune-ful Tongue,
While all the witty want your pleasing Song?
Once more renew those Lays that gave delight,
That chear the Day, and glad the gloomy Night:
May with your dying breath your Verses end;
Thus prays your constant, and

Your truest Friend,

J. T.

THE

EARTH-QUAKE

OF

JAMAICA,

67

68

[1]

Describ'd in a

Pindarick Poem.

By Mr. TUTCHIN.

——namq; Diespiter
Igni corusco nubila dividens

Plerumq; per purum tonantes

Egit Equos volucremq; currum,

Quo bruta Tellus & vaga flumina,
Quo Styx, & invisi horrida Tænari

Sedes, Atlanteusq; finis

Concutitur. Valet ima summis

Mutare,——

Horat. lib. I. Ode 34.

L O N D O N,

Printed, and are to be sold by R. Baldwin, near the

Oxford-Arms in Warwick-lane, 1692.

THE

Earthquake of Jamaica

Describ'd in a POEM.

I.

Well may our Lives bear an uncertain date;

Disturb'd with Maladies within,

Without by cross Events of Fate,
The worst of Plagues on Mortals wait,

Pride, Ignorance and Sin.

If our ancient Mother Earth,
Who gave us all untimely Birth,
Such strong Hysterick Passion feels;
If Orbs are from their Axles torn,
And Mountains into Valleys worn,

All in a moments space,

Can humane Race

Stand on their Legs when Nature Reels?

Unhappy Man! in all things cross'd,
On every giddy Wave of Fortune toss'd;

The only thing that aims at Sway,

And yet capricious Fate must still Obey;

Travels for Wealth to Foreign Lands,

O're scorching Mountains, and o're desart Sands,

Laden with Gold, when homeward bound,

Is in one vast impetuous Billow drown'd:

Or if he reaches to the Shoar,
And there unlades his Oar,

Builds Towns and Houses which may last and stand,

Thinking no Wealth so sure as firm Land;

[2]

[3]

Yet Fate the Animal does still pursue;

This slides from underneath his Feet, and leaves him too.

II.

Environ'd with Ten Thousand Fears we live,
For Fate do's seldom a just warning give;

Quicker than Thought its dire Resolves are made,

And swift as Lightning flies,
Around the vast extended Skies:

All things are by its Bolts in vast Confusion laid.

Sometimes a Flaming Comet does appear,
Whose very Visage does pronounce,
Decay of Kingdoms, and the Fall of Crowns,
Intestine War, or Pestilential Year;

Sometimes a Hurricane of Fate,
Does on some great Mans Exit wait,
A murder'd Cornish, or some Hercules,
When from their Trunks Almighty Jove,

Who breaks with Thunder weighty Clouds above,

To Honour these

Large Pines and Oaks does Lop,

And in a Whirlwind lays 'em upon Oeta's Top.

E're this vast Orb shall unto Chaos turn,
And with Consuming Flames shall burn,
An Angel Trumpeter shall come,
Whose Noise shall shake the Massie Ground,
In one short moment shall express,
His Notes to the whole Universe;
The very Dead shall hear his Sound,

And from their Graves repair,

To the impartial Bar,

Those that have been in the deep Ocean drown'd,
Shall at his Call come to receive their Doom.

III.

But here, alas! no Omens fly,
No secret Whisper of their Destiny
Was heard; none cou'd divine
When Fate wou'd spring the Mine:
Safe and secure the Mortals go,
Not dreaming of a Hell below;

In the dark Caverns of the gloomy Earth,
Where suffocating Sulphur has its Birth,

And sparkling Nitre's made,

Where Vulcan and his Cyclops prove;
The Thunderbolts they make for Jove;
Here Æolus his Winds has laid,

Here is his Windy Palace, here 'tis said
His Race of little puffing Gods are bred,
Which serve for Bellows to blow up the Flame,
The dire ingredients are in order plac'd,
Which must anon lay Towns and Cities waste.

Strait the black Engineer of Heaven came,

His Match a Sun-beam was,

He swift as Time unto the Train did pass,
It soon took Fire; The Fire and Winds contend,
But both concur the Vaulted Earth to rend;
It upwards rose, and then it downwards fell,

Aiming at Heaven, it sunk to Hell:
The Neighb'ring Seas now own no more,
The sturdy Bulwarks of the Shoar,
The gaping Earth and greedy Sea,

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[5]

Are both contending for the Prey;
Those whom the rav'nous Earth had ta'ne,
Into her Bowels back again

Are wash't from thence by the insulting Main.

IV.

The Old and Young receive alike their Doom,

The Cowards and the Brave,
Are buried in one Grave;

For Fate allows 'em all one Common Tomb.

The Aged and the Wise

Lose all their Reason in the great Surprise.

They know not where to go,
And yet they dare not stay,
There's Fire and Smoak below,

And the Earth gaping to receive the Prey:

If to the Houses Top they Crawl,

These tumble too, and downwards fall:

And if they fly into the Street,
There grizly Death they meet;
All in a hurry dye away,
The wicked had not time to pray.

The Soldier once cou'd teach grim Death to kill,

In vain is all his Skill,
In vain he brandisheth his Steel:
No more the Art of War must teach,

But lyes Fates Trophy underneath the Breach:

The good Companions now no more Carouse,
They share the Fate of the declining House,
Healths to their Friends their Bumpers Crown'd:
But while they put the Glasses round,
Death steps between the Cup and lip,

Nor would it let 'em take one parting Sip.

V.

The Mine is sprung, and a large Breach is made,
Whereat strong Troops of Warring Seas invade;

These overflow;

Where Houses stood and Grass did grow,

All sorts of Fish resort:

They had Dominions large enough before,

But now unbounded by the Shoar,
They o're the Tops of Houses sport.

The Watry Fry their Legions do extend,

And for the new slain Prey contend;
Within the Houses now they roam,

Into their Foe, the very Kitchen, come.

One does the Chimney-hearth assail,

Another slaps the Kettle with his slimy Tail.

No Image there of Death is seen,
No Cook-maid does obstruct their Sway,
They have entirely got the day.
Those who have once devour'd been
By Mankind, now on Man do Feed:
Thus Fate decides, and steps between,

And sometimes gives the Slave the Victors meed.
The Beauteous Virgins whom the Gods might love,

Cou'd not the Curse of Heav'n remove;
Their goodness might for Crimes Atone,

Inexorable Death spares none.

Their tender Flesh lately so plump and good,
Is now made Fishes and Sea-monsters Food;

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In vain they cry,

Heav'n is grown Deaf, and no Petition hears,
Their Sighs are answer'd like their Lovers Pray'rs,

They in the Universal Ruin lye.

VI.

Nor is inexorable Fate content
To ruine one poor Town alone;
More Mischief by the Blow is done:
Death's on a farther Message sent.
When Fate a Garrison does Sack,
The very Suburbs do partake

Of Martial Law,
Its Forces draw

To every Mountain, Field and Wood,
They Ravage all the Neighbourhood.
Worse than the weak Assaults of Steel,
Its Instruments of Death all places feel.
They undiscover'd, like fell Poison kill,

Its Warriours fierce,

The Earth, the Air, and Men do pierce;
And mounted, fight upon the winged Winds.
Here a great Mountain in a Valley's thrown,
And there a Valley to a Mountain grown.
The very Breath of an incensed God,
Makes even proud Olympus Nod.
Chang'd is the Beauty of the fruitful Isle,
And its fair Woods lopp'd for its Funeral Pile.
The moving Earth forms it self in Waves,
And Curls its Surface like the Rowling Seas;
Whilst Man (that little thing) so vainly Raves,
Nothing but Heaven can its own Wrath appease.

VII.

But Fate at length thought fit to leave its Toil,
And greedy Death was glutted with the Spoil.
As weary Soldiers having try'd their Steel,
Half drown'd with Blood, do then desist to kill.

More Ruin wou'd a second Deluge make,
Blot out the Name of the unhappy Isle.

It fares with her as when in Martial Field,
Resolv'd and Brave, and loath to yield,

Two num'rous Armies do contend,

And with repeated Shouts the Air do Rend.
Whilst the affrighted Earth does shake,
Some large Battalions are entirely lost,
And Warring Squadrons from the mighty Host:

Here by a Shot does fall
Some Potent General;

And near to him,

Another loses but a Limb.

Part of the Island was a Prey to Fate,
And all the rest do's but prolong its date,

'Till injur'd Heav'n finds,

Its Bolts a Terror strike on humane Minds;
Sure we may hope the Sinners there Repent,
Since it has made their lewdest Priest Relent.

F I N I S.

[8]

A

Pindarick ODE,

IN THE

PRAISE

OF

Folly and Knavery.

By Mr. TUTCHIN.

L O N D O N,

Printed and Sold by E. W. near Stationers-Hall.

1696. Price 6d.

A

Pindarick ODE

In the Praise of

Folly and Knavery.

I.

My humble Muse no Hero Sings,
Nor Acts, nor Funerals of Kings:
The great Maria now no more,
In Sable Lines she does deplore;
Of mighty William's growing fame,
At present must forget the name,

Yet she affects something that is sublime,

And would in Dytherambick strain
Attempt to rise, and now disdain
The Shrubs and Furzes of the Plain:

He that's afraid to fall, shou'd ne'r pretend to climb.

II.

Let others boast of potent Wit,
And Summon in the awful Nine,
With all their Aids of Fancy, Humor, Sence,
Fair polish'd Learning, Eloquence,
And call their gawdy works Divine:
Hov'ring above my Head let dullness sit,
The only God that's worshipp'd by the Age;
Immortal Nonsence guide my Pen,
The Fames of Shakespear and of Ben,
Must warp, before my nobler fire
To their regardless Tombs retire.
Thus Arm'd, with Nonsence, I'll engage

[5]

[6]

[7]

}

[8]

Both Universities,

And their Pedantick fooleries,
Show the misguided World the Cheat,

And let Man know that Nonsence makes him Great.

III.

Almighty Folly! How shall I thy praise
To Human Understandings raise?

What shall I do
Thy worth to shew?

The Glorious Sun, that rules the Day,
Gives vital warmth and life by ev'ry Ray.

His Blessings he in common grants,
To Hemlock as to nobler Plants;
Thy Virtue thou dost circumscribe,

And dost dispence
Thy influence,

But to the Darlings of thy Tribe,

Thou Wealth and Honour dost bestow
On thy triumphant Fools,

Whilst abject Sence do's barefoot go;

So weak's the Learning of the noisie Schools.

IV.

Tell me, ye Learned Sots! who spend your time

In reading Books,

With thoughtful Heads and meagre Looks,

To Learnings Pinacle, who climb
Through the wild Briers of Philosophy,
The Thorns of harsh Philology,

The dirty Road where Aristotle went

Encumber'd with a thousand terms

Uncouth, Unintelligible,
Not by any fancy fathomable,

Bringing distracted Minds to harms;

The rankest Hellebore cannot prevent.

Tell me, I say, ye Learn'd Sots!

Did e'r the old or new Philosophy,
Make a Man splendid live, or wealthy die?

Tho' you may think your Notions truer,

They'll ne'r advance your Lotts,

To the Estate of Wise Sir Jonathan the Brewer.

V.

A Fool! Heav'ns bless the charming Name,

So much admir'd in Ages past,

As long as this, and all the World shall last,

Shall be the Subject of Triumphing Fame.

A Fool! what mighty wonders has he wrought?

What mighty Actions done?
Obey'd by all, controul'd by none;

Even Love its self is to its Footstool brought.

For t'other day, I met amidst the Throng
A Lady wealthy, beautiful and young;
Madam, said I, I wish you double Joy,
Of a ripe Husband and a budding Boy,
And with my self a sight of him you Wed,
The happy Part'ner of your Bridal Bed.
Sir, she reply'd, I him in Wedlock had;
Pointing unto an Image by her side,

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}